


Ad Meliora

by Black_Briar



Category: Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Character Death, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hopeful Ending, Hurt Peter Parker, Hurt/Comfort, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-11
Packaged: 2020-03-01 03:33:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18792139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Black_Briar/pseuds/Black_Briar
Summary: Peter waves.  “Hey, man.  Come to join the dead guys club?”Strange gives him a quizzical look.  “What?”“Dead guys club,” Peter repeats.  “I just coined it.  It’s for everyone who got snapped.”  He clicks his fingers in demonstration.  “Dunno what we’ll do at club meetings, but whatever it is, it must be better than sitting here forever.”  He flops back down on his back.Strange does not look amused.  “You’re not dead.  Get up.”Or, Peter tries to cope with the aftermath of Endgame, and does a terrible job of it.





	Ad Meliora

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all, welcome back! After the absolute emotional whirlwind that was Endgame, I wanted to write a little piece about the aftermath. Of course, that 'little piece' ended up being forty pages and taking three weeks to write, but still! It was super fun to work through, and I hope you guys like it.
> 
> Just in case it's somehow not clear: this contains ENDGAME SPOILERS.
> 
> Enjoy!

Peter remembers when he first got his powers.

The bite itself hadn’t hurt that bad.  It had just been a pinch on the back of his hand, a slap to dislodge the spider, and then nothing.  A bit of swelling, maybe. 

No.  What really hurt was the _transformation_.

It’s a faint memory now, because it was so long ago.  But he’ll never forget the feeling.  He’ll never forget the way the pain had crept up on him, starting with a fuzzy head and a stuffy nose, and how his aunt had stuffed his face with cold medicine and forced him to stay home.  He’ll never forget the way pins and needles had started in his fingertips and climbed slowly upward, until his entire body was buzzing with light numbness.  And especially, he’ll never forget the way his heart just started skipping every other beat, and the way his muscles seized as his entire body strained to keep up with the process of his DNA being rewritten.

At the time he hadn’t thought it was serious enough to call anyone, because he was an idiot.  Or, he hadn’t thought it was serious enough until he got about halfway down the hallway to get a drink of water and suddenly found himself on the ground.

It was such a strange feeling.  He was standing when he closed his eyes, and he was flat on his back when he opened them again.  To him, no time had passed.  He’d just…blinked.  But then he opened his eyes and there was an ambulance, and his aunt was there, and apparently he’d been down for entire minutes.  Entire lots of minutes.  Enough minutes for his aunt to find him and freak out, at least.

When he blinked again, he opened his eyes in the hospital.

He’d been fine, of course.  The doctors had written it off as— _something_.  A really, really bad case of influenza, maybe?  He can’t really remember.  But that _feeling_.  He remembers the feeling.

That feeling of just being _gone,_ only to open his eyes and just suddenly be _aware_ , with no concept of how long it had been or whether or not he was even still _alive—_

Well.  That’s how it feels to suddenly exist again.

It isn’t like turning to dust.  That had been a gradual process, as his body struggled to repair the damage and he could do nothing but cling to Tony in abject terror, tears in his eyes.  Being brought back is…sudden.  One moment he’s just _nowhere,_ and then suddenly he’s staring up at a swirling, dusty alien sky. 

Peter stares at that sky in complete bewilderment.  There are chunks of rock hanging around like they were zapped with some kind of zero gravity ray, and he remembers the big purple guy grabbing a literal, entire moon and chucking it at them.  Briefly, he wonders how those chunks are still floating in the air when by all logic they should be crashing down on top of them.  They’re _huge_.

Something shifts, and Peter’s brain kicks into overdrive.  _Wait—_ why is he staring up at the sky on an alien planet?  Why is he on his back?  He—he doesn’t remember laying down.  Though, now that he’s really thinking about it…

_I don’t feel so good, Mr. Stark._

His stomach drops and suddenly everything slides back into place, like the pieces of a jammed lock realigning and twisting and throwing open the door.

_I’m dead,_ he thinks.  _Thanos killed me.  Oh, god…_

He doesn’t move.  He lays on his back and tries to reconcile himself with the fact that he’s dead.  Though, he doesn’t really _feel_ dead.  He flexes his fingers experimentally and feels the dirt and grime smear beneath his palms.  Can dead people be dirty?  Can they take showers?  Is he going to be filthy for the rest of eternity?

He hears something behind him again.  Rocks shift and grind, and someone groans.  Peter wonders who else died with him. 

Surely…not Mr. Stark?  He’d seemed fine when Peter had gone down, but who knew what had happened after that. 

The thought of Tony being dead finally gets Peter to move.  He lifts an arm experimentally and makes an attempt to sit up.  His fingers slip in the grime, though, and he goes back down.  Everything hurts.  He can feel where Thanos crushed him into the ground, can feel the press of his massive fingers around his chest, and it makes his breath shorten.  Apparently dying doesn’t fix the injuries you get before you die.  Which isn’t great, to be honest.  He wonders if he’s just going to have these wounds forever.

Okay, he has to get up.  This time when he braces an arm beneath him, he manages to get himself into a sitting position.  He pulls his legs closer to his body.  When he looks around, he sees a burning, destroyed planet that looks like it’s been the center of a warzone.  And oh, yeah, it definitely has.  And they lost the war.

Peter runs a hand through his hair, sweaty and greasy and flaked with dried blood.  “I can’t believe I died out here,” he grumbles.  “Oh man, May is going to be so mad at me…”

Something moves behind him again.  Footsteps, he thinks, coming toward him.  When he turns, he sees Dr. Strange standing there staring at him. 

Peter waves.  “Hey, man.  Come to join the dead guys club?”

Strange gives him a quizzical look.  “What?”

“Dead guys club,” Peter repeats.  “I just coined it.  It’s for everyone who got snapped.”  He clicks his fingers in demonstration.  “Dunno what we’ll do at club meetings, but whatever it is, it must be better than sitting here forever.”  He flops back down on his back.

Strange does not look amused.  “You’re not dead.  Get up.”

Now it’s Peter’s turn to stare.  His stomach does a little hopeful loop, but he doesn’t quite let himself believe it.  He’s—not _alive_.  There’s no way he’s alive.  Surely he’s dead.

“Kid.”  Strange snaps his fingers, trying to get his attention.  “I know you need to readjust, but we don’t have time for you to go into shock right now.  Stark needs you.”

Stark.  Tony Stark. 

Needs him.

Peter lurches to his feet so fast that Strange has to grab his shoulder to keep him from falling.  “Mr. Stark!” he bursts out, looking around, but he’s not there.  “Where—where is he?  He was just here, and now…”

“It would take too long to explain.”  Strange looks behind him, where Peter sees a few familiar faces.  The Guardians, he remembers, though he doesn’t know their individual names.  “Everyone, gather round!  I know you’re disorientated, but there’s still a war that needs to be won and we’re the only ones that can help!”

_You’ve got to be kidding me,_ Peter thinks, because he can’t even _think_ of fighting right now, after being dusted and then suddenly waking up feeling like he’s been hit by a semitruck.  But then he remembers what Strange said about Tony needing him, and he tries to steel himself. 

This is what heroes do.  Fight battles no one else can, even if they’re injured and exhausted and kind of panicking because they literally just died and somehow came back. 

Strange raises a hand, and Peter realizes that he should have been paying attention.  All he catches is a basic, _kill the bad guys, save the good guys, and I’ll explain the rest later_ before the wizard is opening a golden portal in the air, and they’re through the looking glass.

Then there’s chaos.

Everything blurs together.  Peter knows very little about what’s going on—how he survived, if he even _really_ survived, why the infinity gauntlet is suddenly Iron-Man colored, why there’s a massive army invading earth (again), why every hero in the entire universe seems to be there—but he does know that his mission is to find and protect. 

So he finds Tony.  He’s in the center of the battle looking like he’s been hit over the head with a planet (which he should know, seeing as he watched it happen pretty recently), and when he sees Peter the expression on his face goes all funny. 

Later, Peter will look back on this moment and hate himself for not _staying._ Because maybe if he had stayed with Tony, he could have prevented what happens next.  But the fact is, he doesn’t stay.  Tony hugs him, whispers something in his ear that doesn’t quite translate over the noise of the battle going on around them, and then pushes him away at arm’s length and gives him a good once over. 

Tony looks older.  Peter doesn’t think much of it in the moment, but later he’ll understand and hate himself.

“I—” Tony’s voice catches, and he clears his throat.  “It’s good to see you again, kid.”

Peter gives him a confused look.  “We just saw each other, Mr. Stark.  What—?”

He cuts him off with a quick shake of the head.  “Later.  Just…right now, we have a job to do.  Did the wizard fill you in?”

He nods.  “Play keep away with the gauntlet.”

“Right—and get it to Scott at all costs.”  Then he winces.  “Well, not all costs—don’t die.  Please.”

The _not again_ remains unspoken, but Peter hears it anyway.  He nods once, sharply, and that’s it.  “I won’t let you down.”

“I know.  Now get out there!”

He doesn’t know it then, but those are the last words he will ever exchange with Tony Stark.

Unfortunately, he _does_ know it about ten minutes later.

It’s a long ten minutes.  He gets the gauntlet and flips up into the skies, and everything just kind of flies together as he’s tossed from place to place, from person to person, until he hits the ground and the whole world turns to smoke and fire and ash.  He’s sure he’s about to disobey Mr. Stark and die then and there before there’s a brilliant flash of golden light, and someone he’s never met before is standing before him.  She doesn’t introduce herself, but she takes the gauntlet, gives him a teasing smile, and vanishes. 

Peter doesn’t see what happens next, but he knows when the snap happens because he feels it.  It’s a familiar surge of power that nearly knocks him off his feet—and for just a moment, he stands there and waits to dissolve into dust again.  When it doesn’t happen, and when the bad guys start to disintegrate, Peter’s blood runs cold and he knows something terrible has happened.

He finds Mr. Stark.

He’s right.

 

* * *

   


The funeral is warm.  The sun is bright, and there’s this soft, perfect breeze that plays with Peter’s hair until it sticks out in odd directions.  For such a beautiful day, the mood is somber.

Peter shuffles his feet.  Dust puffs out around his shoes, and May nudges him.  He stops fidgeting.

He isn’t really _there_ for a lot of the funeral.  He stands and watches as a few people get up and speak, telling stories about Tony and laughing about some of the ridiculous things he’d done when he was younger.  At one point someone—Steve, he thinks—tries to pass the mic to him, offering him a chance to share his memories of Tony, but he shakes his head and the moment passes.  If he tries to speak, he’ll cry—and he doesn’t want to cry.

By the time things wrap up, the sun is creeping toward the horizon and it’s beginning to feel cold.  People are standing around and talking, the group sharing having come to an end a while ago.  Peter is just standing there.  May went to talk to Pepper a while ago and hasn’t returned, and Peter doesn’t really feel up to seeking out conversation.  So he stands and just kind of lets the conversation flow through him instead. 

Unfortunately he’s standing in the middle of a group of very perceptive superheroes, so someone notices his withdrawal pretty much immediately.

It’s Steve.  No surprise there.  He extricates himself from a conversation with Sam and Bucky and finds Peter standing in the same place he’s been standing in for what feels like hours.

“Hey, Peter,” he says softly.

Peter forces himself to focus, then forces himself to smile—but it comes out more like a grimace.  “Cap,” he rasps.

“Please, just…call me Steve.”  He shoots him a quick glance, like he’s trying to gauge his thoughts.  “How are you holding up?”

“Fine.”  It’s hard to get out, because it isn’t really true.  It’s been a few days since Tony died, and he’s been floating the whole time.  There’s so much to take in.  Between finding out he’s been dead for five years, reuniting with people that, in his memory, he’d just seen last week, and trying to deal with the death of yet another father figure, he’s been more than a little overwhelmed. 

Steve doesn’t look convinced.  “It’s okay to _not_ be okay.  No one is expecting you to feel normal after everything you’ve gone through.  A lot of us are going to be dealing with the fallout from this fight for a very, very long time.  And…I know you and Tony were especially close.”

Peter clears his throat and knows that he has to put on a good show here.  Everyone has enough to deal with without having to worry about him, after all.  “I’m fine,” he repeats, with more emotion this time.  “I—I’m going to miss Mr. Stark, but I know he wouldn’t want me to wallow.  So I’ll be okay.  I _am_ okay.”

Still.  He doesn’t look convinced.  “Okay.  But if at any point in this process you feel like you need help, know that we’re all here for you.  We’re here for each other.”

_Not all of us,_ he doesn’t say, dutifully not looking over to the empty space where Natasha should be, or Vision.  Really, it’s a miracle that more of them aren’t dead—but those that are have left spaces that can never be filled.  He knows, as he watches the way Clint instinctually leaves room for Natasha to stand beside him.  He knows, as Wanda half turns to someone that isn’t there before realizing, wincing, and turning away.  Even Thor cracks the occasional joke to someone that isn’t there.  His brother, Peter remembers. 

“You know,” Steve says gently, “when Tony got back to earth, he was in a bad way.  Shaking from blood loss, covered in grime, dehydrated, starving, _unstable.”_

Peter closes his eyes.  He doesn’t want to hear this.

“But…” Steve laughs, a little humorlessly, but not entirely.  “The first words out of his mouth were still about you.”

Peter raises his head, skeptical.  “What about me?”

He wishes he hadn’t asked as Steve cringes and admits, softly, “That he’d lost you.”

It doesn’t make him feel any better.  He knows that Steve is trying to tell him how much Tony cared, but all he hears is that his death broke the man he admired most.  Not for the first time, his heart swells with self-hatred.  He can’t fix what’s been done.  But oh, he so desperately wants to.

Steve seems to realize that he’s made things worse.  “Sorry.  I—I just wanted—”

Peter nods shortly.  “I know.  Thank you, Cap—I mean, Steve.”

He winces guiltily.  “Just…don’t hesitate to call.”

A few days ago—no, _five_ _years ago,_ he would have nearly passed out at the prospect of Captain America giving him his phone number.  But now he just stares, trying to school his expression into something relatively normal as Steve types in his number and retreats to Sam and Bucky.  Peter feels bad for scaring him off, but…he’s just so _numb_.  He can’t bring himself to really, truly care.

Peter turns away.  He catches sight of Happy, suddenly, sitting on the porch with Tony’s daughter.  Morgan, he thinks.  His enhanced hearing picks up on Happy offering to take her out for food later. 

For a moment he almost walks over to them.  He’s never had a real conversation with Morgan, after all, and he hasn’t properly spoken to Happy since before Thanos.  But his heart sinks as he watches Morgan smile, and Happy laugh at something she’s said, and he thinks better. 

He’s not a part of their family.  He won’t try to intrude.

Someone grabs his shoulder, and he jumps before he realizes it’s just May.  She smiles, the kind that doesn’t reach the eyes.  “I think it’s about time to go, Peter.”

Peter leaves quietly, ignoring the burn of Steve’s eyes tracking him all the way to the exit.

 

* * *

   


Life stalls for a few weeks after the funeral, while the planet tries to figure out how to deal with the population effectively doubling.  It’s strange, the way things seem to hang in the air.  School and work are distant thoughts as everyone returns home and slowly, painfully, tries to put the pieces back together.

Peter is no exception to this.  Aunt May had cried when she first saw him—she’d been dusted too, but the horror of dying and the shock of coming back had still been fresh in her mind—but Peter hadn’t cried, not even at Tony’s funeral, and now his chest feels tight.  He presses a hand over his heart and takes a breath, but it catches slightly in his lungs.

It feels strange, to try to live.  For Peter it’s like no time has passed, but everything around him is so different.  Cities are practically deserted.  Houses are run down and decaying.  A lot of his friends are suddenly five years older.  A lot of people are just _dead,_ having either committed suicide, died in accidents caused by the snap, or just succumbed to old age.  Five years is a long time, Peter learns.  Long enough for him to feel like he closed his eyes knowing everything about the world, and opened them knowing nothing.  It’s like crashing on an alien planet—which he should know all about, seeing as he’s done it before. 

It didn’t end well then.  Peter hopes that this time around things go better.

Peter and May are lucky—no one moved into their apartment while they were gone, the need for housing having been cut in half, and with a little help from the government’s relief programs they get to just go home like nothing’s changed.

Well…okay, a lot of things have changed.  Everything is filthy and infested with bugs, there are rats in the walls, their possessions have been knocked around…but for the most part, Peter realizes that they’re some of the lucky ones. 

 It takes quite a while to get everything cleaned up.  It takes even longer for all the technical stuff to get sorted out.  But eventually things start to fall back into place.  Peter walks outside and sees people smiling, laughing, hard at work to rebuild their lives.  He walks through the park and sees people walking their dogs or playing with their kids.  If not for the buildings that are still run down, or the people that still have this haunted, disbelieving look in their eyes, he would almost think that five years _hadn’t_ passed. 

…But they have.  That’s the problem. 

He thinks back to Titan.  He thinks back to the last time he’d ever gotten to see Tony.  The last time he was something even _resembling_ okay.  Then he looks at his hands, and he can’t put words to the way he feels.

Learning he’d been gone for five years had been a shock, but in the face of battle he hadn’t had a chance to really think about what that meant.  He’d fought, he’d killed to defend himself, and now here he was.  Alive.  And honestly, at first he’d been so pumped with adrenaline that he’d thought nothing of being gone for all those years.  But after the funeral it really starts to sink in.  The grief.  The shock.  The _pain_.  He really starts to _see_ what’s happened in the past five years, and it gives him whiplash.  To feel like you were home yesterday, and then to see five years’ worth of decay…it’s horrifying.  It makes him feel sick and confused. 

And his heart gets heavier.  And heavier.  There are moments where he feels like he’s fine, until he smiles and reaches for his phone to send Happy the daily report—and then he freezes, and his heart sinks, and he has to lean down and hang his head between his legs. 

He waits for it to get better.  He’s sure it’s going to get better.

He goes for a walk one day and comes across the huge field that, according to the news, used to hold the names of everyone who had vanished.  The names are gone now.  In their place, they’ve built a massive monument to the Avengers.  That tight feeling in Peter’s chest spikes at the mere sight of it.  It’s a collection of absolutely gargantuan statues, with Tony and Steve at the forefront and the others gathered not far behind. 

Peter walks up to the monument.  There are people everywhere, and he has to sidestep a group of little kids before he gets close enough to see the nameplates  at its base.  His eyes linger on Natasha’s name—she was a good hero, he respected her—before tracing down to where the name _Tony Stark_ is outlined in gold letters. 

He swallows hard.  His chest is so tight he can hardly breathe. 

But he’s fine.  He’s going to be fine. 

“…tragic,” he hears someone muttering, not too far away.  “He saved what, trillions of lives, and he still has to die?  He didn’t deserve that.”

…No.  He really didn’t. 

Peter crosses his arms and looks up into the statue’s face.  Where he’s standing, rendered in stone, Tony looks calm and fierce and overwhelmingly confident.  What _isn’t_ there is the cockiness, the weariness, the bone-deep sorrow that had hooked its claws into him a long time ago and never let go.  Peter isn’t sure, but he imagines that those last three probably got a lot more prominent over the past five years. 

He…wishes he could have known Tony, over those years.  He’d just barely gotten to know him before the snap, after hours upon hours of time spent in the lab modifying their suits, and now…

He just wishes that Tony hadn’t died a virtual stranger to him.

Peter looks away from the statue.  Before the snap, he’d been something like a friend to Tony.  He hadn’t known everything about him, obviously, but…they were close.  Closer, after the Vulture.  When Peter died, he remembers looking into Tony’s face and being absolutely terrified—but comforted, too, because he knew Tony, and he knew that if anyone could make this right it was him.  Then he’d opened his eyes, and the man he’d come to look up to as a father suddenly had a real child and a real family and he _had_ put things right, but it was oh so different than five years ago.  Peter looked at Tony and saw someone he respected and loved, but also someone he no longer knew.

He doesn’t feel any animosity toward Tony for that.  He’s glad that he moved on and found something like happiness with his family before he died.  But…it still hurts, when he thinks about those five years he missed out on.  Even if it sounds selfish.

He still can’t breathe.  It sucks.  This whole thing sucks. 

His eyes drift over to where Steve’s statue stands proud, just a hair away from Tony’s.  His stone face is warm, comforting, familiar—and for a moment Peter considers that number stored in his phone from the funeral, and wonders if he should call and talk to him.  It’s not the first time he’s thought about it, but it’s the first time he’s considered it with even a remote sense of gravity.  Maybe…talking to Steve would help lift some of the weight on his shoulders.

But then he blinks, and the moment is gone.  He can bear the weight.  It’s heavy, but he can hold it.  There’s really no need to worry anyone else.

He’s going to be okay.

Peter turns away from the statues—but not without one last glance—and begins to make his way back out of the park.  The sun is setting, and everything is golden.  There’s a beautifully cool breeze tugging at him, and the moment is beautiful.

It’s the perfect moment for Peter to smile, say his goodbyes to Tony, and let him go.  It’s the perfect moment for him to move on.

But he can’t.

The weight only grows heavier.

When he gets home, there’s a notice waiting for him in the mail that school is going to start again the following week.  Then that week passes in a snap—no pun intended—and suddenly it’s Sunday, and he’s staring blankly at the wall at four in the morning because he can’t sleep.

Morning comes.

 

* * *

   


School starts again, which is odd.  Half of Peter’s class has graduated high school and gotten three years into college, which is even odder.  Luckily—or unluckily, maybe—Ned and MJ were snapped too, so they’re still his age.  They’re thrown back into their classes as if nothing happened. 

It’s strange—there are all new faces, a few new teachers, lots of new students, and yet Peter feels like he’s only been out of school for the month it took for the world to fall back into place.  It’s a horrible sense of disorientation.  There are counsellors prepped to help everyone with the transition, of course.  Lots of people have been absolutely shattered by what’s been done.  But Peter stays away from them, because there are people that need help more than him.

Ned and MJ are fine.  Shaken, but fine.  They seem more worried about _him_ , honestly which is funny because Peter is fine too.

_Really_.

Tony Stark’s face is all over.  Newspapers, television, radio, billboards…everywhere.  Everyone says the same thing—that he’s a hero.  That he gave his life for the good of the entire universe.  And it’s true, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.

Peter has to keep an iron grip on his emotions when he sees those pictures, those stories, those _obituaries_.  He doesn’t get to cry.  He’s fine. 

Ned and MJ watch him nervously.

Suddenly a week goes by.  There’s a chemistry quiz, and Peter accidentally writes two of his answers in German before he realizes what he’s doing.  Then, when he tries to correct them, he doesn’t even know what he was trying to say in the first place.  He puts his pencil down on his desk and stares at it. 

The world is swimming.  He blinks hard to make it stop.

“Peter?  Are you okay?”

He looks up at his teacher.  Her expression shifts from confused to concerned in a heartbeat.  “I’m fine,” he says.  “Sorry, I just spaced out for a minute.”

She, like Captain America, does not look convinced.  But she must not want to press him in front of all his classmates, who are already staring, because she keeps her mouth shut. 

Peter picks up his pencil.  He crosses out the German and answers the question.

That night he stands in his room wearing the Iron Spider and can’t bring himself to move. 

 

* * *

   


He keeps waiting for the moment the tension snaps.

He knows how this works.  There’s a tragedy, and the weight builds and builds and builds until finally something snaps and it all washes out of him.  He’s waiting for the snap to happen now, as the tension keeps climbing and climbing and his shoulders are forced lower and lower.  Any day now it’s going to happen.  The pain will lessen, the weight will be lifted, and he’ll be okay. 

…Any day now.

Why isn’t it happening?

Peter taps his fork against his school lunch tray and doesn’t eat a thing.  He’s not hungry. 

 

 

* * *

   


He has a nightmare. 

Peter is flying through the air when he sees Tony, leaned against some hunk of rubble and looking about a half an inch from death.  He hits the ground hard, blind with panic, and goes to him.  Steve is already there.  Pepper is approaching in the distance.  Everywhere, heroes are beginning to take note of what’s happening.

Peter skids to his knees, heart in his throat.  “Mr. Stark!”

He doesn’t answer.  His eyes are glassy, one side of his face cracked and bloody and ashen.  Peter chokes back panic and reaches out.  His hands twist in Tony’s filthy shirt, pulling on it like he can pull Tony away from the grave.  Of course it doesn’t work—all that happens is that his shirt tears a little. 

“Mr. Stark,” Peter repeats desperately.  “Please, Mr. Stark—we _won_.  We—we won, and it’s going to be okay now, so you just…you just have to look at me, okay?  Keep your eyes on me.  F-focus on me, Mr. Stark, please…”

Nothing.  Tony’s eyes are fixed on something a thousand meters away, something Peter couldn’t see if he tried. 

Peter’s grip slackens.  His hands slide a little down Tony’s shoulders.  His head drops, and he leans into Tony’s chest without thinking.  He feels the arc reactor, cool and smooth against his cheek.  “Please,” he whispers, like it’ll change a thing.  His nose is dripping, and he wipes it on the back of his hand.  It comes away red.  “Please, _please_.”

But there isn’t a thing.  The arc reactor flickers. 

It’s then that Peter knows.  Or, maybe he knew sooner.  But…as the reactor flickers, spotting in and out, he realizes, and he _burns_.

“Please,” he whispers, just one more time.  “You can’t do this.  You can’t _do_ this to us, Mr. Stark.  We— _I_ need you.”

Once, twice more—the reactor sputters.  Tony’s eyes roll back. 

Pepper is there, gently drawing him back.  Peter lets her. 

He wakes up before the reactor goes out for good.

Peter lays there in his bed and stares up at the ceiling, and he’s reminded yet again of how he did the same thing back on that alien planet.  He’d watched the sky, believing he was dead.  Now he kind of wishes he actually _had_ been dead.  It would have been easier. 

But…then he remembers the joy on Tony’s face when he’d seen him again, the absolutely rapturous sobbing from May, and he can’t hate himself too much for living. 

He…just desperately wishes that they had _all_ gotten to live.

Vision.  Natasha.  Tony.  So few of them gone, but still so _many_.  Peter wonders how it’s possible to feel like so many heroes have died, and like none have. 

Peter can’t sleep after that.  So he gets up and puts on the Iron Spider again, and just stands.  This is the last piece of Tony he has left.  And at least while he’s wearing it, he can pretend that none of this ever happened.  He can pretend that Tony is just a phone call away, working through all hours of the night to make the world a better place.

It doesn’t work.

 

* * *

   


There’s an exact moment when Peter is finally forced to admit that he’s not okay.

Until then, he’d just been floating along in a haze.  Going through the motions, pretending he was okay in hopes that soon he actually would be.  But the nightmares get worse, until Tony actually lurches forward and grabs him by the throat and chokes him, screaming that he _failed_ him, he should have done _better,_ and Peter wakes up with a ring around his neck and realizes that his sheets had gotten tangled, and that he’d been tugging at them in his sleep. 

That isn’t the moment.  It scares him, that he’d been tearing at his own throat in his sleep, but he writes it off as bad luck and starts sleeping without sheets.

He loses a little bit of weight.  Nothing severe—he isn’t dying or deliberately starving himself, he’s just not hungry.  One day he steps on the scale and frowns at the number he sees there.  This isn’t the moment either.

He starts spacing out more and more often.  One day he fails a test because he just stops paying attention and stares at it for thirty minutes.  Another day Ned has to shake him because he’s been staring at his locker for way too long, and people are starting to notice.  Another day still he blinks and realizes he’s been standing in place next to his bedroom window for two entire hours, even though it feels like it’s only been two minutes.  None of these, similarly, are the moment.

He’s tired.  There are bags under his eyes, but if he sleeps the nightmares come back.  So he sits awake and he thinks, and that really just makes things worse.  One day he falls asleep against his will and has that nightmare again, and he wakes up screaming with bloody marks down his arms.  This isn’t the moment either.

The moment comes when he least expects it.  He’s in chemistry class with Ned and MJ, working on an experiment in the lab.  Ned is his lab partner.  They’re doing a test with acid, learning how to measure pH and then testing the dissolving power of the chemicals.  They have these samples they’re supposed to drip the acid onto and record the results.  It’s a little dangerous, but it’s an advanced class and they’re all wearing safety gear.

“Okay,” Ned says, concentrating on the little dropper he’s using to suck up the acid.  “Get the first sample into dish.”

Peter puts the little cube of soft plastic into the petri dish. 

Ned drips the acid onto the cube, and Peter records the results.  Then they move onto a stronger acid, and a stronger one yet, until they’re working with the strongest one. 

“Hang on,” Ned says.  “I’m going to run to the bathroom, do you think you can handle this last one yourself?”

“Of course.”  Peter takes the dropper, and Ned makes his way over to the teacher to ask for a hall pass. 

Peter swirls the acid in its container.  It’s clear, not bright green like in all the movies.  He lowers the dropper and sucks some of it up.  Then he reaches for the little dish with this round’s sample.  He squeezes to release the acid, and—

Everything goes dark.

“Oh my god, _Peter!”_

He snaps back, startled at the sound of MJ’s voice.  The next thing he knows there’s a hand slapping the dropper out of his grip, and then he’s being whirled around and shoved against the sink.  There’s icy water on his hand.

“Get the teacher,” MJ snaps at someone, keeping the water running.  “Jesus, Peter, what were you _thinking?_ ”

He stares at her oddly.  “What do you mean?”

“What do I—Peter, your hand!”

He blinks at it.  He can’t see much, since it’s under the water, but when he tries to remove it to look MJ slaps him. 

Ned reappears then, looking alarmed.  “What happened?”

“The idiot just poured the acid on himself!”

Peter blinks.  _Huh?_

“Woah!” Ned says.  “I mean, I’m sure it was an accident!  You don’t have to be so angry at him.”

“It wasn’t an accident,” MJ snarls.  “I watched him look at his hand, grab the acid, and just pour it on himself.”

Peter can’t believe his ears.  “No I didn’t!”

“I _saw_ you.”

“But…” He trails off.  “I don’t _remember_ …”

He flexes his hand under the water.  It burns.  He can feel it now. 

The teacher shows up.  Peter has to keep his hand under the water for five minutes, and then fill out a report.  MJ doesn’t say anything about him having done it on purpose—which he _didn’t_ —and he’s thankful, but he wonders why. 

Or at least, he wonders why until MJ grabs him by the collar and hauls him around to the side of the building when school lets out.

He should have known she’d want to yell at him herself, rather than pawning him off on the school authorities.

“Peter,” she says, her voice tight.

He frowns at her.  His mind is only half there, like most of the time these days.  “What’s up?”

She shakes her head.  She looks awful.  “I can’t do this anymore.”

“Do—do what?”

She laughs, and it comes out a bit hysterical.  “You don’t even _know_.”

“…Know what?”

“Know that you’re not even _here_ most of the time!  Know that _we_ know!”  She clutches at the front of his shirt, and Peter is reminded of the nightmare where he holds onto Tony’s shirt and he tries to kill him in response.  He sucks in a sharp breath.  “Peter,” MJ whispers, “we both know that you haven’t been _here_ since before the snap.  At first I thought it was just a part of the mourning process, and that you’d be fine after a few weeks, but you’re just getting worse.  You aren’t eating, you look like you haven’t slept in a month, you barely talk, and then today…” She shudders.  “I watched you do it.  The look on your face…it was so _vacant._ ”

Her voice is shaking.  MJ is…afraid?

“And you don’t remember it,” she goes on, voice soft.  “That’s the terrifying part.  You didn’t even realize what you’d done.  You didn’t know you’d hurt yourself.  You didn’t—you didn’t feel the pain.”

There’s a hint of fear at those words, as Peter considers the fact that _no_ , he doesn’t remember.  But then it’s gone, replaced by apathy, and he looks away.  “Sorry,” he mutters.

But MJ isn’t having it.  Her gaze hardens.  “Would Tony want you to kill yourself?”

That name.  It hurts.

“ _Would_ he?”

He jumps.  “I’m not trying to—”

“ _Would he?”_

“No!”

Her hands twist in his shirt.  “Then _why_ are you trying to do it?”

“I’m not!”

“Do you have no respect for his memory?  I thought you loved him!  What kind of a way is this to live, throwing his memory in the trash just because you feel a little bad about yourself?”  Her hands tremble.  “Maybe it’s none of my business, but it seems like a really shitty thing to do, to let his sacrifice go to waste.”

“I’m _not_ ,” he says again, desperately.  “Please, MJ, you have to understand!  I’m not trying to hurt myself, I’m really not!”

“You’re living like a corpse,” she bites out.  “What’s it going to take for you to realize that you need to talk to someone?  Are you going to accidentally pour acid down your throat next?”

He cringes.  “No!  God, MJ, that’s so drastic!  I know that today looked bad but I’m really—!”

She cuts him off sharply, one hand striking him across the cheek without mercy.  His head cracks to one side for a beat before he realizes what’s happened. 

“Peter,” she whispers, as he nurses the scalding handprint on his cheek.  “Look me in the eyes and tell me you’re okay.  If you can do that, I’ll never bother you about this again.”

So he looks her dead in the eyes and says, “I’m…”

Then he hesitates.  The word _fine_ catches on his lips.  He’s not sure why.  He’s never had any problem saying it before, even when it wasn’t true.  If he could lie to Captain America, why can’t he lie to MJ?

She raises a brow.

And something in Peter just…

Turns to dust.

He’s on his knees before he has a chance to realize he’s falling.  His eyes fix on the ground, on the cracks in the asphalt, and he stares without blinking.  He wants very badly not to exist.  He hates himself.  He hates what he’s let happen.  He hates what he’s doing, and what he’s done.  He hates having to live like this.  He hates that he can’t move on.  It’s stupid—he hadn’t even known Tony for long, not in the grand scheme of things, but it feels like his entire world has been crushed.

MJ’s hands land on his shoulders, and he realizes that she’s kneeling, too.  Her eyes are full of tears, but she’s smiling.  She looks…relieved. 

“It’s okay,” she whispers.  “It’s not stupid.”

Peter realizes suddenly that he’s just said all of that out loud.  He cringes.  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to weigh you down with—”

She shushes him, this time with a finger instead of a slap.  It’s a nice change.  “Don’t apologize for sharing your feelings,” she says.  “I swear to god, who have you been learning your emotional skills from?”

_Mr. Stark,_ he almost says, and smiles because of it.  A real smile.  A genuine smile.  Even though there are tears behind it.  MJ sees it and smiles back, one hand raising to catch a tear before it has the chance to fall.

“Tony Stark died to give you a chance at life,” she says, holding him tight.  “He died to give _all_ of us a chance to live again.  That’s why I can’t let you throw away that chance.  He died for you.  The least you can do is _try_.  So please, Peter…”

Her fingers thread through his and squeeze.  He squeezes back, somewhat sluggishly. 

“Please,” she whispers again.  _“Try.”_

She looks at him, eyes full of hope and fear and warmth, and Peter’s heart just kind of… _gives out_.  Those tears from all the way back at the funeral, the ones he’d never allowed to fall, are suddenly streaming over his cheeks, and even though he doesn’t make a sound he’s sobbing like a baby and clawing at MJ like she’s his one lifeline and he’s been thrown out to sea.  She doesn’t say anything.  She just pulls him close and lets him cry, the two of them kneeling in some back alley behind the school, knees scuffed and covered in grime.

He’s not sure how long he cries.  But by the time he’s done, he knows what he has to do.

Peter opens up _that_ contact—the one he’s almost deleted a grand total of thirty-seven times since the funeral—and hits the call button.

 

* * *

  


Peter has lost before.

His parents and his uncle, both when he was young.  Or, younger.  He remembers his uncle better than his parents now, to be honest.  He remembers the biting pain of loss.  He remembers the screaming, the blood, the guilt.  And he remembers standing at the funeral in a black suit one size too big, shoes scuffing the ground as his aunt wept openly beside him.  It had been a high, hot day, and everything was dry.  The grass crunched.  It smelled like death.

That was a long time ago.  It has been years since his uncle died, and Peter has already forgotten the little things.  His voice, for one.  The shape of his eyes, his height, the way he held himself, the way he spoke… He remembers when it had first happened, and for weeks he would look up from a particularly tough homework assignment and open his mouth, ready to call Ben for help, before the bottom of his stomach dropped out and he shut his mouth and just sat there, stunned.  For weeks he would look up at the sound of footsteps, ready to laugh and joke and welcome his uncle home, before reality sunk in.  For weeks he would have these moments, these flashes of forgetfulness, where he’d wonder when Ben was coming home. 

Then the moments faded, and Ben being gone became normal, and Peter stopped thinking about him so much.  Weeks became months became years, and now when Peter looks back, so many of the little things have faded.  And he wonders—when had he stopped remembering those little things?  That image of Ben in his head—the one that walked into the kitchen, clasped him on the shoulder with a smile, and offered to take him out for breakfast—isn’t quite so crisp anymore. 

And it hurts.

Peter has lost before.  Peter has even lost like _this_ , being forced to stand there helpless as someone he loved died right in front of him.

So why does it still hurt _so bad?_  

He’s used to this pain.  He’s lost before.  He _should_ be used to this pain.

Peter tries and fails again to recall that image of his uncle walking in the door.  He fails—and he wonders when the moment was that he started to forget.  And then he wonders when that moment will come for Tony, too.

He doesn’t want to forget anything about Tony.  He wants to dig his claws into those memories and never let go.  But the thing is, he knows it will happen.  The—the _forgetting_.  He’s only seventeen, after all.  He has a long ways to go before he’ll see Tony again.  And by then…he knows that so much will have faded.  He hopes Tony will forgive him.

He hopes he can forgive himself.

He plays those words over in his head again, the ones he’s heard a dozen times since the funeral— _there’s nothing you could have done to save him, Peter—_ but they don’t sound right.  He knows, logically, that it’s true.  This was Tony’s choice.  When he raised his hand to Thanos, he knew what he was doing.  It wasn’t Peter’s fault.  His brain knows this.

His heart does not know this.

Peter has lost before.  He has.  He’s lost _so much_ , time and time again, and it never gets easier.  Why does it never get any easier? 

Because he _forgets_ , something reminds him, some small, nasty part of his mind.  He forgets the pain, forgets what it’s like to watch his father smile, to hear his uncle speak, to hold his mother close.  He forgets, and so the pain is fresh each and every time it happens.  He’ll forget this time, too.  And next time.  And the time after that.

Peter closes his eyes.

After all this time, it’s really beginning to seem like everyone that loves him is fated to die.

The first time he meets with Steve after the funeral, hidden away in a spare room in the new Avengers compound, he tells him this and is met with quiet understanding.

He tells him other things, too.

He tells him that sometimes he stops being able to _focus,_ and his sight goes fuzzy and he can’t feel anything through the thick layer of rubber than has become his skin.  He tells him that sometimes he’ll blink and wake up hours later, and he’ll just have been staring at the wall the whole time.  He tells him about the nightmares, about these strange flashes of terror he’ll get when he hears a particularly loud noise, about the way his brain shorts out when he sees bright flashes of light.  He tells him about the hours spent standing in his room in his suit, unable to go out but unable to sleep.  He tells him about the acid and about strangling himself in his sleep, about how he hadn’t even realized he was hurting himself until it was too late.

Steve nods and says nothing.

Finally, when Peter has nothing left to say, he falls silent and Steve sits and watches him with even eyes.  He doesn’t seem surprised by anything Peter has told him, and for a moment Peter wonders if _he’s_ experiencing the same thing too and is just better at coping with it.

He starts to feel embarrassed for a moment, as Steve doesn’t say anything.  He wonders if he’s said something stupid, if he’s wasting Steve’s time, if he should have just kept his mouth shut and dealt with this himself.

Then, mercifully, Steve speaks.

“You’ve had all of this weighing you down for well over a month.”

It isn’t a question.  Peter winces and nods.  “I—I’m sorry, maybe it isn’t serious enough for me to waste your time.  I should have tried to deal with it myself before I…”

Peter trails off as Steve just stares him down, calm as ever.  Then, “Son, don’t do this to yourself.”

Something inside of him cracks, but he swallows down his pain.  “Do what?” he asks.

_“This.”_

Silence.

The clock ticks intrusively in the corner.  Once, twice, three times, over and over, reminding Peter that minutes are passing and he’s just sitting here doing nothing.

Across from him, Steve uncrosses and re-crosses his legs.  Leans his cheek on his hand, watching him patiently.  He seems to have no desire to break the silence.  Peter has a feeling that any real therapist he could have gone to would be pressuring him to talk right now, trying to get under his defenses and get him to express himself right off the bat, but Steve is different.  Steve is calm. 

He isn’t sure if he appreciates it or hates it.

Finally, Peter can’t take it anymore.  He leans forward and says, “I mean, I _have_ tried to deal with this.  It’s not like I called you without putting in any effort myself.  But the thing is, it keeps getting worse.  And I’m not even sure if what happened is bad enough for me to feel as bad as I do, you know?  Like, am I overreacting?  Should I be fine?  I feel like I should be fine, since I’ve lost people before—I’ve even been in pretty serious fights before, so the battle shouldn’t have taken too much out of me!  But then I just—I get these _flashes,_ and it’s like I’m there again.  I—I can’t eat and I can’t sleep, and nothing feels real and I can’t figure out why I’m not okay.  Why am I not okay?”

If Steve thinks it’s odd for him to leap right back into the conversation after solid minutes of dead silence, he doesn’t mention it.  Instead he asks, “Why do you think you’re not okay?”

Peter flushes, but he’s not sure why.  His entire body suddenly feels way too warm.  Is he running a fever?  “I don’t know,” he insists. 

“Guess.”

Peter looks down at his clasped hands.  The truth is, he does know.  Or at least…he suspects.  But saying it out loud sounds ridiculous.  He’d only known Tony for a year or two before _that,_ so he has no right to feel the way he does.  He has no right to feel like he’s lost—like he’s lost a _father_.

Steve makes a small noise, catching his attention.  “Peter,” he says softly, “you don’t have to worry about being judged.  Even if you think it sounds stupid, you can say whatever you want.  So please…why do you think you’re not okay?  If you say that you’ve lost people before, and fought in in serious battles, why is this one affecting you so badly?”

“Because…” Peter hesitates still, because he’s uncertain.  But he knows he has to say this, even if it’s foolish, because he feels that it’s true.  “Because I’ve never lost anyone like Mr. Stark.  He was…different.”

“Different from your real father, and from your uncle?” he presses.  “Why?”

Everything goes quiet for a moment.  Peter doesn’t quite want to say it out loud, because saying it out loud will make it real and that’s the last thing he wants.  But he’s here to heal, not to shut down, and so he knows what he has to do.  He sucks in a breath, slow and even, and forces himself to speak.

“I think,” Peter says softly, so softly that Steve has to lean in, “that it’s because I convinced myself that I’d finally found a father that was invincible.”  His voice skips over the word _father_ , but he gets it out.  Because it’s true. 

Steve’s expression goes pained. 

“And then…just when I thought I finally had someone that I could really hang onto, he just…went.”  Peter feels that tightness in his chest starting to wind up, and he forces another deep breath.  “Mr. Stark was my idol.  I thought he couldn’t be touched.  And so for him to die like that, lying in the dirt, skin cracked and bleeding, eyes so _vacant_ …” He swallows hard.  “It’s—it’s heartbreaking.  It’s like the world broke a promise it made to me, even though _it_ never really promised me—I did, to myself.  I promised myself he was invincible, so I could justify loving him.  And then he died.”

Things go quiet for a moment as Steve processes.  “I’m sorry you lost someone you considered a fath—”

“Three people,” Peter interrupts, then cringes because he just interrupted Captain America.  “I—I lost three people I considered fathers.”

Steve gives a slow, deliberate nod.  “Right.  I’m sorry.  I…didn’t realize.”

“It’s fine.”  He looks away.  “You’d think that it would hurt less and less every time one of them dies.  But it only seems to hurt more.”

“And that’s why you’re having problems letting go,” Steve said.  “Or, you don’t want to let go.  Is that right?”

“I don’t want to forget,” Peter says quickly.  “But…I _do_ want to let go.  I want to be at peace with his death.  Maybe if I am, then all the nightmares will stop.  Maybe I can focus on something for a change, and not space out all the time.  Maybe…I’ll stop feeling like I’m suddenly back on the battlefield.”

“Do you believe that Tony’s death is the only thing causing you to have these flashbacks?”

“Flashbacks?” he echoes, surprised.  Logically he knows that that’s what’s been happening, but hearing the word spoken out loud gives it new weight.  “I…I guess they are flashbacks, aren’t they?”

Steve gives a gentle nod.  “Yes, they are.  And…based on what you’ve said, it sounds like you’re experiencing periods of disassociation as well.”

_Disassociation._ It’s another big word, one that he recognizes from the internet, but he’s having a hard time pinning it on himself and making it stick.  He’s pretty sure that disassociation is something that happens to people who have been really, seriously traumatized, and he hasn’t been through anything bad enough to traumatize him like that.  Other people have been through so much worse.  Pepper, for one—she lost her _husband._ And Wanda lost Vision, and she got dusted too so why isn’t she breaking down?  And what about Clint?  He lost Natasha—but oh, he still has his family, so maybe he’s doing okay because of them?  And—and Thor, he lost _everything._ And he wasn’t doing too good for a while, but now he’s starting to recover.  All of those people have been through way more than Peter and are doing way better, so why is he so _weak?_

Steve raises a hand, and Peter realizes that none of that was actually in his head.  He flushes with embarrassment.

“You are not weak,” Steve says, with as much conviction as Peter’s ever heard. 

“But—”

“Peter,” he says, and the force behind the name makes Peter sit up straighter.  “You don’t seem to have realized this, but it sounds like what you’re experiencing is PTSD—and a severe case, at that.  The fact that you’ve lived with it this long already means that you are anything but weak, and the fact that you gathered the strength to call me makes you one of the strongest people I’ve ever known.”

Peter blanches at the word _PTSD_ and glazes over it, choosing to focus on the second half of Steve’s speech.  “You’re just saying that.  I’m not that strong.”

“You went toe to toe with Thanos on Titan.”

“Yeah, and he would have killed me if he’d decided he really wanted to!  His hand was around my chest, you don’t _understand—”_

Then the world turns white, and Peter realizes that the tightness in his chest has winched higher and higher until suddenly his throat just says _enough_ and closes off entirely.  His lungs burn, his mouth hangs open, but he can’t seem to _breathe_.

Something strikes him hard across the cheek, and his world realigns.

His first thought is, _what the hell just happened?_ His second is, _I don’t think that’s how you’re supposed to help someone out of a panic attack._

Steve’s hands are on his shoulders, and Peter is on the ground.  How did he get on the ground?  He moves to get up, but Steve pushes him back down.

“Peter,” he insists, and he’s never seen him so firm, so adamant.  “You have PTSD.”

Peter lets himself slump against the ground, defeated.  “It’s not that bad.  It was just one person dying, I don’t understand—”

“It was _not_ just one person dying.”

“But still, isn’t PTSD people who fought in wars or were involved in something really, really horrible?”

Steve stares at him like he’s lost his mind.  “You _did_ fight in a war.  You fought in the most devastating war in all of not just human history, but in all the history of the universe.  And you died.”

It’s like a sharp kick to the gut, hearing those words.  Because Peter doesn’t really want to think about the fact that he died, really, especially since it led to _this_.

Steve holds up his fingers and starts counting them off.  “You fought in a war.  You were killed in said war.  You were brought back only to learn that five years had passed, while you believed you had only been out for a second.  Then you had to fight another war, in which you nearly killed by the dropping bombs.  All of this, I might add, while playing keepaway with something that had the power to end all life as we know it.  And then…” He trails off.  “Well.  And then Tony.  And then the stress of integrating back into normal society despite everything being so irreversibly changed.”

And wow, okay, when he puts it like that Peter wants to throw up.  Like, really throw up.  Oh no—

Steve’s hand lands on his shoulder, and some of the nausea fades.  It’s comforting, knowing he’s there.  Knowing that Peter isn’t just going to drift away, untethered.  Knowing that he isn’t going to turn into dust again. 

“Easy,” he soothes.  “I’m sorry, that was a bit much.  My point is just that you’re _not_ just dealing with the death of one person, here.  Tony’s death was awful, but it’s only one of many traumas that you have to deal with right now.  The war, your death, returning home…you’ve been through more than enough to justify how you’re feeling.  Even if you hadn’t, you don’t _have_ to justify the way you’re feeling.  Emotions aren’t rational.  I would be here for you even if you _hadn’t_ been through all of this, and you still needed to talk.”

 His eyes burn, and this time he doesn’t fight as tears start to leak out.  He rasps, “It—it’s just not—”

He’s not even sure what he’s trying to say.  It’s not easy?  It’s not—not _possible?_   _What_ isn’t easy?  _What_ isn’t possible?  His brain is on fire, all jumbled up, and he can’t get his head straight.  He feels like he’s falling.

“Easy,” Steve whispers again, that hand squeezing his shoulder with pressure that would probably hurt a normal person, but that manages to squash the panic beginning to well up in the cracks of his broken mind.

Peter takes a few shuddering breaths before things start to feel even remotely better.  His insides feel hollow, and his head is still fuzzy.  He stares at his knees, shell shocked, and asks, “If…if it _is_ PTSD…what do I do?”

If he wants an easy answer, he quickly figures out that he isn’t going to get one.  Steve hesitates, runs a hand through his hair, and looks very much like he doesn’t want to answer. 

…Right.  That isn’t a good sign.  Peter drops his head to his knees and feels like he wants to be anywhere but here.  “So I just get to live like this now, is that it?  There’s no way to fix it?”

“Calm down.”  Steve raises a placating hand.  “It’s not that I can’t help you, it’s just that this is a lot more complicated than fixing or not fixing.  You can’t just _fix_ PTSD.  It doesn’t work like that.” 

Great.  Now he feels even worse.

“I can’t snap my fingers and make what happened go away,” Steve says.  “But what I can do is help you deal with the trauma and eventually move on.”

There’s something.  A spark of—hope, he thinks.  Hope that maybe, just maybe, an end is in sight.  Not anywhere near him, but…still.  In sight.

Steve fixes him with this calm, even look, and some of the turmoil that’s been churning inside of him since the funeral starts to fade.  “I’m not going to lie to you here.  You need to know that you’re never just going to _get over_ what’s happened.  You need to know that…that this is a process, and it’s not one that’s going to be easy.  You’re probably going to be in a lot of pain for a long time before it really starts to feel better.  But if we’re going to do this, then we have to start now.  I don’t like the way your symptoms have progressed.  They just seem to be escalating, and I’m worried that soon you’ll really hurt yourself.  We can help you get better, but it’s going to take time and effort.  Are you up for that?”

Something inside Peter’s chest unravels at that.  He’s confused—Steve is telling him that he’s going to be put through hell, but for some reason that tight knot in his chest is starting to loosen.  Why?  Why now, when he’s being told that there is no easy fix?  When Steve is telling him that he’s going to have to work, and work hard, just so he can regain some semblance of normalcy? 

It’s a really strange feeling, to see the hardships ahead and to welcome them with relief. 

Steve clears his throat.  “You’re the one that has to decide how hard you want to work at this.  I can only help you as far as you’re willing to help yourself.”

Peter gives a slow, shallow nod.  And again, he asks, “What do I do?”  But this time his voice is steady, and the words carry new weight.

Steve understands.  “You keep talking.  I’ll set you up with Sam, he’s good at this kind of thing.”

“And…you, too?” he asks.  Because he likes Steve, and he feels like talking to him might help.  It already has helped. 

“If that’s what you want,” Steve responds evenly.  “I would be glad to talk to you, Peter.  But keep in mind that I’m no therapist.”

“You’re doing all right.”

He huffs out a laugh.  “Give it time.”

So he does.

 

* * *

   


Peter goes back to Steve.  He goes to Sam, too, and even though their relationship is strange at first, they quickly grow past their differences and become something like friends.  Sam helps him figure out how to deal with the flashbacks.  He helps him begin to rationalize his guilt and his pain and his heartbreak, and begin to work through them.  He helps him stop hurting himself, and eventually stop _wanting_ to hurt himself.

It’s a long process.  Most of the time Peter feels like he’s not getting anywhere, and when something goes wrong and he finds himself back where he started it hurts worse than ever.  But slowly, surely, the pain begins to lessen.  One day he realizes that he’s only had three panic attacks in the past week, where the week before that he’d had four.  The week before that, he’d had seven. 

Really, that makes it sound way easier than it actually is.  That makes it sound like Peter doesn’t relapse more often than he’d care to admit.  That makes it sound like he _doesn’t_ wake up screaming, and he doesn’t drop to the ground when his brain just _stops_ as he’s trying to walk home, and he doesn’t lie awake at night and hate himself for what he’s allowed to happen.  That makes it sound like he isn’t in pain, and he is.  He’s never been in this much pain.

But still…he keeps moving forward.

After three weeks of his meetings with Steve and Sam, Peter finally tells May what’s going on.  He tells Ned a week after that, and MJ a few days after that.  May cries.  Ned looks like he’s swallowed something sour, but steps up immediately and proclaims that he’ll do whatever he can to help.  MJ nods approvingly and hugs him.  She’s proud of him.  She doesn’t say it, but she doesn’t have to because it’s in her eyes.

There’s one more person Steve thinks he should tell.  He’d suggested it only once, driven by one of Peter’s offhanded comments that he would later regret, and that Steve had never tried to bring it up again.  But Peter still knows that Steve thinks he should tell her.  Pepper, he means.  About what he’s going through.  Because according to Steve, she’s going through the same thing.

But he won’t.  Because he still has a lot of work to do before he decides he’s strong enough to look Pepper Potts—Pepper _Stark_ —in the face and try to pretend that he knows how devastating it is to lose Tony Stark.

So he talks to May, and he talks to his friends.

And things start to look up.

Slowly.  Painfully.  But…it happens.

Peter puts the Iron Spider away, on Sam’s request.  Sometimes he still breaks and gets it out just to stare at it, run his fingers along the work Tony had done for _him,_ but most nights it stays firmly closed in a locked box under his bed.  Sam tells him that one day he’ll be ready, but that for now he needs to distance himself from the suit and focus on other things.

He stops thinking about the battle as much.  Granted, _as much_ just means that he thinks about it eighty percent of the time instead of ninety, but it’s an improvement.  When he spaces out, he comes back sooner.  When he hears loud noises, he doesn’t flinch.  When the ghost of Thanos’s fingers around his chest suddenly makes it hard to breathe, he knows how to stop, ground himself, and count his breaths until everything returns to normal. 

He doesn’t stop thinking about Tony.  But as time passes, his sadness begins to break down.  It doesn’t leave.  Peter knows it will never leave.  But when he thinks back, he finds himself examining his time spent with Tony with appreciation rather than mind-numbing grief.

The tightness in his chest lessens.  It doesn’t let go, but…it lessens.

Then one day Peter blinks, and nearly nine months have gone by. 

He goes to the park to see the memorial.  The sun is bright in the sky, and the grass rustles in the breeze.  The dark thought that this is exactly like the day of Tony’s funeral tries to nudge at Peter’s mind, but he brushes it off.  Instead he walks and enjoys the sunshine, and smiles as his hair flips this way and that, played by the wind.  And he feels…okay.  Not great, but okay.  Better than he has since being dusted.

He walks up to the memorial.  There aren’t many people around, seeing as it’s rather late and a weekday, so Peter has the place largely to himself as he stands in the open field and stares up into the face of his former mentor.  His—his father. 

He remembers a session from many, many months ago, where Sam had asked, _what would you say to him?  If you could tell him anything._  

Peter had had a lot of answers then. 

_Why did you do it, if you knew you were going to die?_

_I’m angry with you for dying.  Why did you leave us, when you had so much to live for?  How could you leave us all behind?_

_Did you know that I loved you?  That I considered you a father?  Because I did.  I still do._

_I’m sorry that I wasn’t there for you in the end.  Maybe if I’d gotten there faster, fought harder, I could have saved you._

_I miss you, Mr. Stark.  So, so much.  I wish you were here._

_You saved all of our lives.  When no one else in the entire universe knew what to do, you stepped up and you figured it out.  You saved us.  I just hate the price you paid to do it._

_I never thought about the fact that you’ve been doing this for so long.  Over a decade, Mr. Stark.  You must have been very tired, standing there holding up all the world for all those years.  I’m…glad you finally have time to rest, now that it’s over._

And now…

Peter shoves his hands in his pockets and looks up into Tony’s face.  His expression hasn’t changed, obviously, but Peter drinks it in like it’s his first time seeing it.  He’s decided that this time, he’s not going to forget.  He won’t let himself.

_If you could say anything in all the world, what would you say to him?_

Well.  It’s easy, now. 

_Thank you, Mr. Stark.  For everything._

 

* * *

   


One year from the moment Peter first called Steve, their sessions come to an end.

By this time, Peter has stopped meeting with Sam as often.  His life has returned to something resembling normalcy, patrols and all, and he feels good.  He goes to see the memorial on the weekends when he has time, and he does his homework in the shadows cast by the fallen heroes.  His panic attacks are almost completely gone.  He smiles more. 

He tells Steve this with confidence, feeling happier than he has in a long time.  Tony’s death is a shadow, but one that Peter understands and welcomes.  It helps remind him why he has to keep going. 

“You’ve made a lot of progress,” Steve says, returning his smile.  Their friendship has grown greatly over their year of contact, and Peter looks him in the eye without trepidation.  “I’m proud of you, Peter.”

“Yeah, I’m proud of me too.  I still miss him, but…I think that’s okay.”

“Yeah, I do too.”  Steve’s eyes haze over, and Peter knows who he’s thinking about.  “I still miss Nat.  I think about her every day.  But in the end, we have to reconcile ourselves with the fact that they’re not coming back.  And we have to move on.”

“Move on,” Peter agrees, “but not forget.”

“No.  We never forget.  We never forget any of them.”

Gamora.  Vision.  Loki.  Natasha.  Tony.  Peter lists the names silently, as he likes to do often just to remind himself of what had to be sacrificed in order for him to live.  _They_ gave him this second chance, alongside hundreds of others who gave their lives for the sake of the universe, and he’s going to make the best of it.

He’s already making the best of it.

The two of them sit in amicable silence for a while, which has become common.  But today, Peter can’t help but notice that Steve looks a little strained.

“Is something wrong?” he presses, and Steve shoots him a sheepish smile

“Is it that obvious?”

“It wouldn’t be, if I were someone who hadn’t spent the past year with you.”

Steve sighs, and the smile falls off his face.  “Should have known I couldn’t keep anything from you.”

Peter waits for a few moments, but Steve doesn’t offer any more information.  So he shifts forward a bit, laughs silently at how reminiscent this is to their first ever session, and asks, “What’s going on?”

Steve obviously doesn’t want to answer.  But still, he admits, “I’ve just had a lot on my mind the past few weeks.  I’m preparing to go on one last mission, and there’s a lot that has to go into it.”

“A mission?” Peter echoes, surprised.  “What for?  Who would be stupid enough to cause trouble so soon after Thanos?”

Steve doesn’t answer.  He just sighs, stares down at his knees, and crosses his arms over his chest.  He doesn’t look miserable, but he certainly doesn’t look happy.  There’s something weighing on him.

 “Did—” Peter cuts himself off awkwardly, not quite sure it’s his place to ask what he wants to ask.  But when Steve doesn’t react, he restarts and pushes on.  “The stones.  You _did_ take care of the stones, right?  Surely that’s not what this is about.”

Steve doesn’t answer, and it’s all the answer Peter needs.

Peter’s eyes go wide.  “Seriously?  You never returned the stones to their proper times?  But it’s been a whole year!  When will you send them back?  What happened to the whole branched timeline thing?”

“We have all the time in the world to send the stones away, seeing as once we put them back it’ll be like they never left.”  There’s this strange look in his eyes.  Exhaustion, Peter thinks, but also expectation and hope and weary anticipation.  It worries him for a beat, before Steve keeps talking and that worry fades to confusion.  “Besides…I would have returned them sooner, but there were still a few things I need to take care of.”

“Like…?”

Steve looks at him wearily.  “You, for one.”

_Oh._

Steve huffs out a laugh and lowers his gaze to his hands.  “I needed—I just needed to make sure you were okay.  After Tony…went.  He loved you, and I needed to make sure that him leaving didn’t kill you.  Because I know what it’s like, to lose and to want to die because of it, and there was no way I was leaving you to a fate like that.  Not when I could stop it.”

Peter’s heart warms, but there’s a twinge of pain behind it.  “I’m glad you stayed,” he says softly.  “I…don’t know how things would have ended, otherwise.”

“You’re strong,” comes the response, without hesitation.  “Things would have ended the same way, eventually.  With you, getting help.  And living.”

Peter wishes he could be that confident.  Instead he looks away and asks, “In any case, why didn’t you just return the stones and then come back here to continue our sessions?  In our time, only a few seconds would have passed.”

“Well…” Steve trails off, and the hairs on the back of Peter’s neck suddenly stand straight up.  Like…something’s _wrong._

He puts a hand to his neck and smooths them down, confused.  There’s no reason to worry, as long as he’s in this room.

Steve goes on.  “I guess I just had a feeling that I needed to take care of everything here before I left.  I needed to tie up all the loose ends, make sure everyone who needed my help got it.  And then, once I finished, I told myself I could just… _leave._   Hop into Scott’s time machine and go where I need to go.”

Peter raises a brow.  “You say that like you’re not coming back.”

Steve doesn’t answer. 

It’s like a sucker punch to the gut. 

“Wow.”  Peter leans back in his chair, stunned.  “I—wow.”

Steve looks away guiltily and opens his mouth like he wants to explain but thinks better of it.  “Sorry,” he says instead, voice tight.  “It’s not how I wanted to tell you.  I—I wasn’t sure how to—"

Peter just shakes his head.  “Don’t.”

They sit in silence for a while after that.  Peter thinks with dull shock that yet another person he’s come to admire is going to leave him behind.  He…he _trusts_ Steve.  He’s come to regard him as a friend.  As _family_.  And now…

He tries to remember everything Steve taught him about staying in the moment and keeping himself grounded.  He…he knows that he can’t begrudge Steve his happy ending; he’s heard the man talk about the love of his life nearly every session for a whole year and he’s _sure_ that’s who he’s going to see, but _still_ …

It’s ridiculous, but Peter suddenly thinks about something he’d overheard Pepper say to Tony.  They’d been in the lab, and Peter had been working happily away on the prototype for a powerful new suit while Tony spoke to Pepper off to one side.  Peter wasn’t supposed to hear that conversation, but everyone always seemed to forget about his enhanced hearing.

“You know,” she’d said, “it’s pointless to have him working on that suit if you’re never going to let him use it.”

“I will let him use it,” Tony had answered.  “Eventually.  Just not now.  Or in the next five years.  Just—eventually.”

“You can’t protect him forever.  He’s a superhero, _and_ a teenager.  He’s going to get out there, regardless of whether or not you try to keep him in.”

“I’m not— _trying_ to keep him in, per say.  I’m just trying to keep the whole _risking his life_ thing to a minimum.  I promise I’ll let him spread his wings in, let’s say…three years?”

Peter had risked a glance just in time to see Pepper raise a brow.  “Tony.”

“Okay, two years.”

And Pepper had answered.  “Tony, you’re an adult.  Surely by now you know that the greatest indicator of love and trust is to let someone go.”

Peter hadn’t thought much of it then, but he thinks about it now.

Steve isn’t looking at him.  He’s staring determinedly at his hands, or his knees, or his shoes, or anything that isn’t Peter’s face. Finally he speaks, nervously, and Peter is once again reminded of their very first session when Peter had sounded exactly like him.

“Peter,” he says, “I need you to understand—I’m not doing this to hurt you.  I know you’ve lost a lot in the past year, and I don’t _want_ to be just another person you’ve lost.  I know that it must feel terrible to hear this, and I’m sorry.  I don’t want you to think that I want to leave you behind.  I want you to know that I care about you, and I always _will_ care about you no matter what happens, and that these sessions have been important for me, too.  I want you to know that I’m not just ducking out on you because I don’t care anymore.  I just—"

Peter raises a hand.

Steve goes quiet and stares, and Peter realizes that he’s waiting for him to start yelling or screaming or just generally freaking out at the prospect of losing _yet another father figure._

But no.  He doesn’t really see Steve as his father.  He sees him as his friend—and friends were supposed to do what was best for each other, weren’t they?

It hurts, to know that Steve wants to leave.  But Peter also knows that he can’t be the reason he stays. 

It’s like Pepper said—he has to let him go.  He has to let it _all_ go.

Peter grounds himself, rests his hands in his lap, and just asks, “Where will you go?”

Steve stares at him in shock, like he was expecting anything other than a calm, genuine question.  “I—what?”

“Where will you go?” he repeats. 

“I…” He hesitates, shrugging like he doesn’t know, but his eyes are sharp.  “I have a place in mind.  I left someone really important behind, and I intend to go back to her.”

“And…you aren’t coming back.”

“…No.  I’m not.”

Peter closes his eyes.  Takes a slow, deep breath in.  Holds it.  Lets it out.  Then he raises his head, opens his eyes, and Steve is watching him again.

Steve admits, “I thought you’d feel more— _anything_.  Angry.  Upset.  Betrayed.  You name it.  How are you so calm?”

Peter isn’t calm.  Not really.  On the inside he’s screaming, because he has come to truly, deeply trust and care about Steve, and he knows that their time together is limited.  Very limited. 

But still…

Peter huffs, amused.  “Well…I guess I just can’t begrudge you getting that happy ending you were always going on about.  I know if Tony were waiting for me out there, and all I had to do was step into a time machine and leave this world behind…”

He breaks off. 

Steve watches.  His expression is funny; there’s this tiny smile playing at the corners of his lips.  “You wouldn’t do it,” he finishes.

And he realizes.

“…No.  I wouldn’t.”

Because Tony was gone, and he wasn’t.  Because Tony wouldn’t want him to throw his entire life away just so he could step into the past and have him back.

Steve doesn’t falter.  “You wouldn’t.  But I would.”

And Peter can’t begrudge him that, because he understands.  Even if it upsets him, he understands.  Because Peter still has things in this world—his aunt, his friends, his responsibilities as an Avenger—but everyone and everything Steve loves is back in the seventies.  Now Steve is being offered the chance to go back, and…well, Peter would have taken that chance too, if it had been him. 

There’s silence, for a moment, as the two sit there and think about what’s going to happen.  The inevitability of Steve’s departure, and what Peter is going to do once he’s gone.  It’s not a long moment, but it’s enough. 

When Peter speaks again, his voice is soft.  “I guess we’ll really be alone.”  It comes out slightly hurt, which wasn’t what he wanted because he’s okay.  This is okay. 

Steve winces.  “Not alone,” he corrects.  “There—there are still heroes.  People willing to stand with you, if and when the next threat arrives.”

_The next threat,_ he thinks, somewhat sadly.  He catches himself thinking that after Thanos, nothing feels like a threat.  And that’s so much a thought he would have had a few months ago that he has to pause and remind himself that he’s _healing,_ and there’s no room for him to start thinking like that again.  Even if all the sadness of the past year is threatening to press down on him again as Steve decides to leave, he knows he has to stay strong. 

“Clint and Banner are still around,” Steve presses.  

“With his family, and in hiding,” Peter lists. 

“Until they’re needed.”

Peter huffs, amused.  “No.”

 “…No,” Steve agrees.  “Wanda, then.  T’challa.  Scott.  Bucky.  Rhodey.  Sam.  The Guardians.  Carol.”

He’s right, in a way.  But it doesn’t make him feel much better.  Peter looks at his clasped hands and smiles sadly.  “It won’t be the same.”

Steve is quiet.  Then, “No.  It won’t.”

Peter breathes deep.  The world is shifting.  The world shifted a year ago, when Tony Stark died on the battlefield.  The world shifted five years ago, when he was snapped out of existence.  But only now does it finally settle into his bones, and only now does he finally reconcile himself with the fact that _that_ world—the one he left behind all those years ago—is never coming back.

“It’s up to us now,” he says quietly, and Steve doesn’t disagree. 

“One day,” he says.  “Not now—but one day—you’re going to make a hell of a leader.”

There are so many things Peter wants to say to that.  So many fears, fears about being good enough, about being smart enough, about living up to his predecessors and making his mentor—his _father_ —proud.  But all of that is too complicated, and Steve is watching him expectantly, and so he just swallows everything back, smiles damply, and settles on, “Language.”

Steve throws his head back and laughs.  “Yeah.  One hell of a leader.”  Then his tone sobers.  “Do us proud.”

Peter nods and hopes that Steve takes it for what it is—a benediction, and a promise. 

The clock chimes, right on the hour, and Steve looks up.  “Well, looks like it’s time for me to get going.  I promised Bucky I’d go to the lake with him today.”

Steve gets up, and something in Peter’s chest twists.  “When?”

Steve blinks.  “Around four?”

“That’s not—” He sucks in a sharp breath.  “I mean, when are you leaving?”

Steve’s expression shifts, and Peter knows he gets it.  “I don’t know,” he says.  “Like I said, I still have a few things I want to take care of.  You were one of them.  But now…” He shrugs.

Peter thinks of Bucky and Sam, and all of Steve’s close friends, and cringes.  “You—you have to tell them.”

“They’ll only try to stop me.”

_Maybe that’s_ why _you should tell them,_ he doesn’t say.  Instead he says, “They deserve to know that they’re seeing you for the last time.”

Steve doesn’t argue.  “Yeah.  They do.”

Peter waits for more, but Steve doesn’t speak.  His mind is made up, and nothing Peter says will change that.  His thoughts turn to Bucky, grasping at every bit of information he’s ever been taught about him and his relationship with Steve, and his heart aches.  It seems that no matter what either of them tries, they always end up missing each other by a split second.  And it’s awful.  But Peter understands why Steve needs to do this.

Steve gets to his feet.  “I’ll call you,” he says.  “When it happens.”

Peter nods silently.

“And…” He pauses.  “Just remember everything I’ve told you in the past year.  You’re going to do great things here, Peter.  You’re going to keep this world safe for a long, long time, way after the rest of us geezers kick the bucket.  And Tony…he loved you.  He believed in you.  So whenever you feel like you can’t go on, remember that you can’t ever let that love go to waste.”

“I will.  I’ll remember.” 

And that’s more than a promise.

Steve smiles at him.  “Good.  I…I’ll see you around, Peter.”

Peter wishes, in the moment, that he could think of something more to say.  That he could thank Steve for real, somehow get him to understand how much his words have meant to him over the past year.  He wishes that he could tell him that whatever he does now, it’s okay.  That everything is going to be okay here, without him.  That he’ll do his best to protect the world even without the help of the Avengers. 

But in the end Steve leaves, and Peter doesn’t say a word.

_We’re going to be okay.  You can rest now._

 

* * *

  


 Three weeks later, Peter gets a call.

He stands in front of the time machine, as Bruce so lovingly calls it, and watches as everyone prepares for the jump.  Steve has the case of infinity stones with him, and he keeps it close as he adjusts the white suit he’s wearing.  There’s something severe to his face that tells Peter he hasn’t changed his mind.

Finally the preparations are complete.  Bruce stands at the ready.  Sam and Bucky look on with grave eyes.  Steve smiles at them, bright as ever, and walks over to say what Peter knows are his goodbyes.

Sam clasps a hand to Steve’s shoulder.  “Don’t take too long.  It would be rude to keep us waiting.”

Steve gives a nod and another bright smile.  “Don’t worry, I’ll be in and out in a flash.  I promise.”

Sam nods, and there’s something in his face that tells Peter that he knows full well what’s about to happen.  Whether it’s a result of intuition or because Steve decided to tell him, Peter will never know.

Either way, this is cruel.  Peter doesn’t say a word.

Bucky looks at him, and there’s something intense behind his eyes.  Something resigned, something understanding.  “I’m going to miss you,” he says.

“I’ll be back in five seconds!  It won’t take long at all.”

“That isn’t what I meant.”

The two watch each other for a beat, uncertain.  Then Steve smiles again, but this time it isn’t with that same bright optimism.  It’s with regret.  “I’m sorry,” he says.  “I wish…I wish things were different.”

“They could be.”

Steve bristles, alarmed, but Bucky is quick to head him off before he can get too worked up.  Still, it’s the most distressed Peter’s seen Steve in all their time together.

“Go be who you want to be,” Bucky tells him, and some of that sharpness fades from him as Steve smiles, bright as the sun.  “I’ll be waiting right here for when you return.”

The severe line of Steve’s shoulders slumps, and that bright smile fades just a tic.  “I…I’ll miss you too, Buck.  See you on the other side.”

Then it’s Peter’s turn.  Steve stands in front of him, and his stomach swoops sadly.  “Good luck,” he says.

Steve dips his head.  “Thanks, but I think you’ll need it more.  Take care of everyone for me, will you?”

He nods.  “Always.”

Then, in a process that is far too unceremonious, Steve is standing on the platform, Bruce is announcing the countdown, and Steve vanishes in a blinding flash of light.

Bruce’s steady voice announces, “Back in five, four, three, two…”

There’s a flash.

Peter’s heart sinks as he stares, expecting to see either nothing or a tremendously old man, and—

It’s Steve.

Just…Steve. 

The case is gone.  His face is exactly the same, and he’s wearing a sheepish smile like he’s done something he shouldn’t have.  It looks like he’s only been gone a few months. 

Bruce is immediately alarmed.  “Did it work?  What happened?”

Steve holds up a hand.  “It worked just fine!  I just…got some good advice from an old friend, and realized I’d left something behind.”

Bucky takes a few careful steps forward.  “And what did this old friend tell you, exactly?”

He looks at him and smiles.  “In kid-friendly terms?  To stop being an idiot.”

“And what does that mean, might I ask?”

“Well, for one…”

Steve takes his other arm out from behind his back, and Peter sees that he’s holding a second quantum realm suit.  Given Steve’s time-jumping capabilities and the fact that he looks like he’s spent a few months out there, he doesn’t question how he has it. 

Steve looks at Bucky, gaze even, and speaks three words

“Come with me.”

And that’s all it takes.

The two stand on the platform, and Peter watches with satisfaction because at least _one_ of them gets to keep almost everything they care about.  He’s glad it’s Steve, if it’s going to be anyone.  Steve deserves the world.

Steve looks to him.  “See you in five, Peter.”

Peter gives them a wave and a wink.  “See you in five.”

And they’re gone, to the sound of Bruce sputtering in confusion and asking _why are they jumping again?  Were the stones returned?  What’s going on?_

But he doesn’t get an answer, and the countdown is already in motion.

“Back in five, four, three, two…”

Bruce pulls the lever.

Nothing happens.

Peter sighs as Bruce frantically tries to figure out what went wrong.  Beside him, Sam is watching with resignation. 

“Stop trying,” he says, when Bruce starts babbling about rebooting the machine. 

“I can’t stop trying, they’re stuck out there!”

“No.”  Sam shoves his hands in his pockets and looks up at the sky.  “Those two are exactly where they want to be.”

Peter smiles and watches the clouds.

 

* * *

   


It’s the last big step. 

Peter holds his cell phone in his hands, twiddling it nervously between his thumbs.  He isn’t sure what to do.  It’s been a few minutes, so maybe he should call…?  But then again, it’s _only_ been a few minutes, so maybe he shouldn’t call.  But if they’ve forgotten where they were supposed to meet him, he really should let them know he’s here.  So, a call, then?  Or—or a text?

_You know what?  This is ridiculous.  I’m just going to call._

Just as he thinks it, someone bursts through the door behind him.  “Sorry we’re late!”

Peter’s heart simultaneously grows heavier and lighter.  Logically he knows that this meeting is long overdue, but he still feels slightly nervous about coming here.  Still, he takes a deep breath, prepares himself, and turns to face the person that, up until a short while ago, he hadn’t considered himself worthy of speaking to. 

But that time is passed.  Now he looks Pepper in the eyes, and he is met with an expression that reflects his own.

Pepper smiles.

“Peter,” she says softly, and she walks forward just slowly enough to give him an opportunity to stop her, but he doesn’t. 

She closes her arms around him and draws him into a gentle hug.

When they part, she looks down at him with eyes that have seen too much and fixes him with a look that reads guilt and grief and joy all rolled into one.  “It’s so good to see you,” she says, squeezing his shoulders.  “Steve told me you weren’t doing well, right after it happened, and I…I wanted to reach out, but I didn’t want to intrude.  I’m sorry it took me so long to get in contact.”

Technically Peter was the one that contacted her, but he doesn’t mention it.  He knows how she feels, to want to speak to someone but to fear that he has no business doing so.  It’s how he felt about _her_ for nearly a year.

“It’s okay.”  Peter reaches up and squeezes her hand, still settled on his shoulder.  “I didn’t mean to…”

Then he trails off, because he catches a hint of movement out of the corner of his eye.

And behind Pepper, suddenly—he sees her.

Morgan Stark peers out from behind her mother, curious yet slightly fearful.

She looks like Tony, in all the little ways that make Peter look twice, like the shape of her eyes and the tilt of her mouth and even the cowlick she has just behind her right ear.  It hurts a little, seeing him reflected in her, but it also makes him love her almost immediately.

“Mommy?” she asks timidly, risking a glance at Peter.  “Is that him?”

Pepper smiles in return and grabs her daughter’s hand.  “Yes, sweetie, that’s him.”  Then she looks up.  “Peter, this is my daughter, Morgan.  And Morgan, this is my friend, Peter.”

Morgan continues to watch him uncertainly.

Peter takes it upon himself to step forward and drop to one knee so he can see her better.  Her eyes are so, so familiar.  “Hey there, Morgan,” he says.  “I…I was friends with your dad.”

She cocks her head.  “Are you Spider-Man?”

Pepper covers her mouth, and Peter laughs.  “Yeah, that’s me.  I guess your dad told you all about that, huh?”

“Yes.  He said you had to go away, though.  For lots of long time.”

He raises a brow.  “For lots of long time, huh?  Wow, that’s quite a while.”

“It can’t be too long,” she retorts, “since you’re here now.”

When he looks up at Pepper, she’s trying to hold in what looks like a mixture of laughter and tears.  Evidently the laughter wins out, as she keeps her mouth covered and tries to pretend like her shoulders aren’t shaking.

Peter turns his attention back to Morgan.  “Well,” he says, “regardless of the lots of long time it took me to get here, I’m here now.  And if you don’t mind, I was hoping we could be friends?”  He extends a hand, being sure not to reach too close for fear of scaring her. 

Morgan takes a moment to consider him with those same dark eyes.  They lock him down, and Peter feels like he’s being dissected, spread across a lab table as a scientist documents every inch of his very soul.  It’s the same feeling he used to get whenever he did something wrong and refused to fess up, and Tony would just narrow his eyes and try to force it out of him without even opening his mouth.  Most of the time, it worked.  

Morgan’s eyes shift, and she seems to have decided on a verdict because she drops the scared act and steps out from behind her mother with a smile.

She reaches out and takes his hand.

And for the first time in six years, everything feels real and bright and _free_.

**Author's Note:**

> Well that was a journey! 
> 
> This was a blast to write, if about ten thousand words longer than I originally thought it would be, and I really hope you guys enjoyed reading! I know some of you are probably waiting on me to post parts five and six of Who Watches the Heroes, and I WILL finish them and have them up as soon as possible, hopefully over the summer. I've just been INCREDIBLY busy over the past six months, starting college and getting a job and dealing with a troubled roommate, and I'm finally in a place where I can start working again. So keep an eye out!
> 
> Don't hesitate to drop me a comment if you enjoyed! I always love to talk with you guys.


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